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27/03/2013

Broadchurch Episodes 3 , Episode 4

With viewing figures of over nine and a half million, for episode 3
there is no doubt that Broadchurch is
a major hit with the public as well as the critics and it’s easy to see why. Part
3 is primarily about the unravelling of Mark Latimer’s alibis revealing he
definitely wasn’t where he said he was the night his son vanished while we also
learn Danny had claimed his father hit him. There’s also a confrontation
between (journalist) and Hardy over the Sandbrook case. The episode is
full of tension whether in the Latimer house or the police station as both
David Tennant and Andrew Buchan give exemplary performances with Hardy barely
able to cope with the case and Latimer refusing to reveal the truth. At the end
after we’ve found out he was actually with hotel owner Becca Fisher and their
secret liaison provides the end of episode reveal of his wife seeing them

Hardy and Miller's comedy double act did not work too well

Jodie Whitaker’s performance is a master class in shell shocked horror
as one thing piles up on another. Director Euros Lynn creates some
unsettling scenes as this is portrayed both by his cameras and her face. Creepy
Steve Connolly is back too, claiming that he knows who killed her son;- you
have to line him up as a suspect really even though it would be a bit
obvious.

This episode is adept at pushing us in different directions, slowly unveiling
suspicious behaviour all over the place;’ this week including the too cheery by
half Nige, who is Mark’s plumbing assistant and snappy Pauline Quirke as Susan
Wright who must be hiding something! Plus every so often someone asks an
unanswered question about the newsagent – there must be more there as they have
cast David Bradley who can look more suspicious then anyone!

Both characters come to the front amidst part 4’s increasingly tangled
developments. Susan Wright - already discovered to have lied about her name and
movements- threatens the local newspaper editor in a way that makes your
jaw drop. Pauline Quirke is the biggest surprise of the show; how easily her
persona can shift from chirpy Birds of a
Feather type to psycho! She’s not even the main suspect this week; that
mantle falls upon newsagent Jack Marshall whose past misdemeanours creep back
to haunt him. David Bradley has already looked haunted; now he appears almost
glacially petrified at a dinner for the Latimers and Millers.

One of two meals featured, this get together- with food cooked by the
increasingly suspicious Nige - is conveyed by director Euros Lynn as a
mixture of banter and worry as his cameras focus on those individuals with
secrets to hide. Jackson’s arrival as the unexpected guest at the feast
unsettles everyone for different reasons but challenges the viewer to trust him
even when minutes later, the episode ends with him burning a photo of the dead
boy. It would, of course, be far too cliched if it really was him and one hopes
Chibnall is commenting here on how one incident can scar a person’s life
forever.

The scariest person on telly

Hardy’s own inadequacies are highlighted in a lighter sequence where he
joins the Millers for dinner, seeming awkward when asked anything personal,
squirming and avoiding as much as any of the suspects do when he questions
them. Amusingly he still calls Ellie “Miller” at the end. His rant about people
using first names is a neat comment on a habit that does seem to have forced
its way into all aspects of working life these days. Hardy is harbouring a
medical condition too that later causes him to collapse in the hotel – unless
the Millers have poisoned him of course!!

One interesting aspect of the episode is its depiction of the media, something
that is very relevant to today’s headlines. Chris Chibnall is careful to show
how dealing with them is not as clear cut as those for or against censorship
might suggest. Far from being the vulture searching for carrion she initially
seemed Karen White is acting out of concern having covered Hardys’
previous, clearly botched case. Also Chibnall has the Latimers persuaded they
need more press which backfires when the house is besieged during the
aforementioned lunch. The cameras go off with old fashioned intensity, Lynn
seemingly deliberately accentuating their effect to underscore how trapped the
family feels.

Two characters are especially hard to pin down. Psychic Steve (a relentlessly
creepy Will Mellor relishing the best role he’s played) is seemingly proved to
be a charlatan but then again is he? He was right about the boat, as he keeps
saying. And priest Paul Coates benefits from Arthur Darvill’s perpetually
haunted look which suggests vocational doubts if not some guilt about his past.
When he gives his sermon to the assembled, nobody looks less convinced than him
that it will help.

At the halfway stage then Broadchurch
remains intriguing, engrossing and electrifying.